SO, HOW EXACTLY DO YOU FIND THESE POSITIVE DEVIANTS IN PRERS?
We asked our senior leaders to select the folks in their areas that they are happy to be around, that are not always looking at the downside but look at the positive side, that positively energize others. Did we get all 26 absolutely right? Nope. There were a couple, in hindsight, that we might not have asked. But the group became self-policing. After the first year they said, ‘‘Jim, we think it’s time for a couple of the folks to retire from the POS change team, and we want to bring in some new ones.’’ I said, ‘‘Okay, fine. Why don’t we put these folks on emeritus status so they’ll continue to feel a part of the process, but you don’t have to have them actively engaged. You can get some new, fresh ideas.’’ Indeed, that’s just what we did. We agreed that we’d have about a third of the group roll off every year and about a third would come on, so every three years the whole team would have turned over in terms of positive change agents. The advantage is that leaders are seeing these folks, early in their careers, making a difference in the whole company. They were getting a fair bit of attention from their managers, which is not a bad thing.